OUT OF BOUNDS

Last week the KU basketball team (national champions, need I remind you) made a trip to Washington, D.C. to mingle with President Bush. Now, I figure this honorable occasion was more of a thrill for the president than the student athletes, but I'm not one to begrudge them a free trip to the White House. The champs presented Mr. Bush with a KU #1 jersey, cap, and an autographed basketball. And it was at this point that my ol' pal Dr. Maureen, a KU medical school grad, about had a stroke.

"Did anyone else see that ditz George W. with the team yesterday?" she e-mailed. "They gave him a basketball autographed by the team and coaches and he tries to DRIBBLE IT??!! Nothing like wiping away those names on the concrete!"

I suspect Dr. Maureen wasn't the only Democrat in the country who picked up on this presidential faux pas. Plus, she is, and I would swear on a stack of Sports Illustrated about this, as sports savvy as any commentator you'll ever see on TV. Rules, players' backgrounds, statistics, she knows it all. She is also, and I say this in a kind way, verging on being obsessive about her favorite teams. To dribble that signed basketball would be sacrilegious in her mind, aside from being stupid. It needs to be hermetically sealed and placed in a shrine, of course.

In fairness to our president, though, he probably has more important matters on his mind than to be aware of sports etiquette. One of his daughters recently married, and we all know how distracting and stressful that can be for a parent. Oh, and then there are some other little problems to worry about...our lousy economy, the lousy high price of gas, and the lousy war in Iraq that he helped to mastermind. I suspect Dr. Maureen would recommend that it's probably time for him to leave the big arena, dribble on back to Texas, and let someone else be named to the starting line-up. In other words, she's ready to pull the plug.

STONED

Don't ever get a kidney stone. That's my advice for today...mainly because Friday I woke up with the most horrendous pain I'd ever experienced, and, long story short, I was ambulanced over to a hospital in Wichita, where this pea-sized stone was blasted out yesterday by some laser contraption. Don't ask me for details. I was too busy shaking and screaming and puking to care to remember much about it. From now on, my mission in life is to make sure there are no repeat performances for the ol' Flaming Bore, here, and to get the stent removed from my urethra...or whatever it's called "down there." Here's what will be my new bumper sticker:

"JUST SAY NO TO KIDNEY STONES!"

I'm hoping that one of our presidential candidates will pick up this slogan as a campaign catch phrase and spread the word. Kidney stones are a bitch! A double bitch. No, a triple bitch. Man, they suck!

THIS JOB SUCKS!

My least favorite household chore of all time is vacuuming. It's a hassle shoving around this so-called modern convenience, plus it's noisy, and changing the bags is the pits. I once learned the hard way that a nasty, dirt-bulging bag should always be removed outdoors--the time that it ripped open, inside the house, of course, spilling months of crud back onto my carpet.

The first vacuum cleaner I ever owned was a canister type that had about a half-dozen or so handy-dandy attachments, all which I lost within a few weeks of purchase. I had a heckuva time dragging the contraption through the house without battering it into furniture. The coffee table received so many deep gouges that I finally decided to purchase a lighter weight upright number a few years ago. This one is supposed to work wonders on both carpet and wood floors, all with the flip of a switch. To tell you the truth, it doesn't clean very well either way, but the price was right.

It seems that not everyone is an anti-vacuumist and detests these monsters as much as I do. I checked out the Internet and discovered vacuum cleaner museums and several collectors' clubs and websites. One poor sap claims he owns 137 vacuums! What is wrong with this man? I can't even tolerate owning one! Where does he put them? Another writes of his fascination with vacuums as though he is romancing them ("....my heart started pounding when I saw it....") Hmmm. Come to think of it, maybe he is romancing them. Anything's possible.

Lately I've been giving a lot of thought as to how to make vacuuming easier, and here's what I've decided: I'll either hire a maid or spread a few packets of zinnia seeds on my bedroom carpet, water it every once in a while, and let the dirt have at it. Problem solved!

A KODAK MOMENT

Yesterday after supper I was out pedaling my trusty Schwinn 3-speed southeast of town when I happened to turn my head skyward to the west. What I saw was breathtaking. The sun was beginning to peek behind a dark, fluffy cloud and the rays stretched all the way to the horizon. In the foreground was a fence, with grass swaying beside it. Damn! Where's my camera when I need it? I began to think of how I would have captured this awesome vertical shot, changed it to black and white on the computer, and played around with the contrast. Black mounting board, silver frame. Oh, I would have made Ansel Adams proud! But, I'll never have that picture back again. I could plan and plan and wait and wait and the sky will never be exactly as it was last evening. What a shame that I missed such a glorious shot.

There have been similar times in the last few weeks when I wished I'd had my camera...the sun peeping through cedar trees and iris at the Neodesha cemetery, its rays settling on an old obelisk gravestone; a rainbow arc behind Mama Bore's house as viewed from Fredonia's South Mound observation tower. Why didn't I think to bring my camera with me?

Well, I tell you what I did when I returned home from that bike ride yesterday. I went to my closet, dug out an old fanny pack, and from now on the camera goes wherever I go. I don't care if it's just to walk down to the post office and back, I'm hauling that 10x, 8.0 mega pixels baby with me. I may never get those other awesome moments back--in fact, I'm positive I won't, but I'm not going to miss out on any more.

"FRIENDS, STUDENTS, COUNTRYMEN...."

While I was walking about town yesterday, I ran into an old student who had been in my English II classroom 17 years ago. We stopped to hug and chat and before long we were laughing about crazy incidences that took place, all in the name of higher education, of course.

I reminded the student about her stellar Act III, Julius Caesar performance, when she was on her knees begging the Roman ruler to allow a family member to return to the city. The boy playing JC, not the most solid reader in the class but game, nonetheless, misread his script and instead of saying, "Metellus, you can bow to me all you want...." said, "Metellus, you can blow me all you want...." The young lady was mortified and looked up at me to see if I'd cut the action, but I was concentrating on videotaping the dramatic event and didn't catch the crazy mistake. The show must go on. The "Romans" in the background were busting up behind their scripts, while "Caesar" continued his rant, wondering why everyone was laughing, not knowing what he'd said wrong until the scene was over. Needless to say, it was the talk of the day in Room 114, and there were plenty of demands for instant replays of the tape.


That was my first year of teaching. In spite of the mistakes now and then, I had a wonderful time, and I think most of my students learned a little bit and enjoyed the class, especially the creative and personal writing assignments. Some kids told me that, for the first time, they liked walking into an English classroom.


By the time I retired 15 years later, though, a lot had changed. President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 made it necessary to drop many of the "fun" assignments from previous years. The state's emphasis on writing moved from narratives to exposition. Specific standards were established, all directed to the state assessments, and teachers were supposed to teach towards those. I lost my enthusiasm. I also became lost in a sea of paperwork. Then I lost my good health. It was time to leave.


Today I went down to the basement to dig up some old VCR tapes from school for the "kids" of the Class of 1998 who are having their 10-year reunion this weekend. One of their activities will be the viewing of their campy Hamlet and King Arthur skits from English II. I'm wondering if any of them will watch the videos and feel regret that they were "left behind" because they graduated before Bush's NCLB Act was instituted. For some reason, I doubt it. In fact, I'd bet money on it.

TRACKING DOWN MEMORIES

When I was back in Fredonia helping out Mama Bore last week, I went for long walks each evening. Since she lives across the street from the high school, one stormy looking night I decided to hit up the track. I figured if all hell broke loose, shelter was close by.

The track is one of those fancy, all-weather, cushy types...and it was while I took notice of its high quality that I had a flashback to 1961. I was suddenly 11 years old and a member of the Fredonia Shamrocks, a girls track and field group that was a part of the town's summer recreation program.

Back in those days, no one had heard of spongy tracks. We had...cinders! I suppose it wouldn't have been so bad had I owned a pair of spiked running shoes that dug in and provided some traction, but such sporty footwear cost high dollars. For many of us, it was either tennis shoes (and we're not talking Air Nikes!) or, my choice, going barefoot. Yes, on cinders. I considered it a source of rugged pride (okay, maybe foolish pride) that I was tough enough to allow my feet to be chewed up by black, hot, ground-up chat.

I actually wasn't all that bad. The 200-yard shuttle relay team I was on ended up having the 3rd fastest time in the nation for 10-11 year olds that season of '61. I have the official AAU certificate to prove it. My favorite event, however, was the standing long jump. It was easier on the feet. Competitors launched into a sand pit from a slanted platform. I had pretty good technique, wrapping my toes around the edge of the board for extra push. My personal best was 8 feet, 4 inches. Why do I still remember that distance?

When summer was over, for some reason, girls didn't get to compete in any school sports. Boys only. No girls allowed. This was in spite of the fact that the Shamrocks were quite accomplished in the Junior Olympics circuit--mainly because we had an older girl on the team who always took first place in everything she entered...hurdles, long jump, dashes, whatever. You name it and she was sure to win. She was so talented that three summers later she was on the cover of Sports Illustrated and running the quarter-mile in the real Olympics in Tokyo. Her long legs were like a thoroughbred's and, of course, she wore spikes. She trained on the hometown cinders, running against a boys' 440-yard relay team, whipping them every time. Oh, how we girls loved to see that happen.

The other night while walking around the track, I could still envision her gliding effortlessly around the track, stride long and graceful. She was a running vision to behold. And I could almost feel those blasted cinders burning the soles of my feet during 50-yard practice sprints, my ponytail flying in the breeze behind me. --Ah, it doesn't really seem that long ago.

TAKE TWO ASPIRIN.....

The Flaming Bore has been blog-less recently, as Mama Bore was in the hospital for a few days reeling from an inner ear condition. Once she got home, I stayed on to be her gofer/gardener. Fortunately big brother Beans brought daily meals on wheels, since he is a chef supreme who knows that my cooking would have made Mom more nauseous than she already was. I am happy to report that she is feeling better.

Although I knew Big Bore could take care of himself in my absence and would remember to water the yard and feed the cats, there was one chore he would be certain to conveniently overlook. He does not do litter boxes. Never has; never will. His idea of tending to the two "depositories" on our back porch is to keep throwing on the litter, hoping that maybe the problem will go away on its own. This was the longest I'd ever been away from him and the cats, so I was prepared for the shock. I'll spare my gentle readers the description but will say that all four babies were overjoyed to see me come to their rescue. I swear I heard poor Critter meow out, "Hallelujah! She's back!"

Between the overflowing litter boxes and the bills that arrived in the mail while I was gone, I think I'm about ready to call 911 and check in at the hospital. I'm beginning to feel a little woozy.